I want to talk about Fox News (sorry)

Fox News interests me like a burning house would interest a nosey neighbor. I detest, loathe, despise the news network, yet I keep finding myself peeking at the screen when it's on and listening a little closer when I hear it blasting in another room--am I a masochist? Although I have such strong feelings about Fox News, it's recently come to my attention that I don't know much about it. Thus, I want to use this blog post as a way to do a little research, to allow myself to rubberneck a little longer at the exploding building I'm always driving past.

Fox News was created by the multi-billionaire "media mogul" Rupert Murdoch, who--before getting into the televised news scene--was in charge of the Fox Broadcasting Company, which included shows like The Simpsons, America's Most Wanted, and COPS. In order to get his news company broadcasted, Murdoch hired Republican consultant Roger Ailes to look after it and, instead of getting cable companies to pay to broadcast the channel, paid cable companies to air Fox News. Because of this reverse payment tactic, Fox News was first broadcasted in 1996 on more than 17 million televisions, and their assurance that the conservative network was "fair and balanced" remained as the well-known slogan during its rise in popularity across the US. Eventually it was able to surpass popular networks like CNN with the help of the 9/11 attacks, when TV viewership went up a considerable amount.

Left to right: Murdoch, Ailes

With Ailes as the CEO from the beginning until 2016, when he stepped down due to accusations of sexual harassment from 23 different women, Fox News became a staple news corporation that would only rise in popularity and power. Eventually, it got to the point where it was "practically a fourth branch of government," a nightmare from the deepest recesses of Postman's mind. Of course, the network's success wasn't entirely the doing of the two old dudes in the picture above--Fox News' featured opinion programming hosts were the ones that really sold the deal. Here's a little timeline of some of the shows that have been aired on Fox News:

1. The O'Reilly Factor

Bill O'Reilly was one of the poster boys of the Fox News Channel from 1996 to 2017, embodying the "aggressive" interviewing style that soon became expected of many Fox News anchors. His show was cancelled and he left Fox News because of allegations of sexual harassment from several women, but he was known for his controversial (i.e. sexist, homophobic, racist) comments way before this issue came to light. 

2. Jesse Watters/Watters' World

Jesse Watters is the Robin to O'Reilly's Batman, working his way up from an in-your-face interviewer on the streets to being the host of his own show on primetime TV. Although he doesn't seem to possess the same open aggression O'Reilly did, he still loves confrontation and making insensitive comments unapologetically. Pictured below is a still from a segment he did in New York's Chinatown, where he went around mocking Asian Americans to their faces and saying things like, "Take care of North Korea for us, okay?" All in all, another classic from good ol' Fox News.

3. Hannity

Hannity initially started as Hannity and Colmes, which pitted conservative Sean Hannity against punching bag liberal Alan Colmes, but Colmes left the show in 2006. Another talking head known for his strong opinions (this is a recurring theme, you see), Hannity has become known as one of the most vocal pro-Trump anchors on Fox News, which is saying something since almost everyone on that channel loves the guy. There's a general rule in journalism that reporters shouldn't be openly campaigning and endorsing political candidates, but Hannity does this repeatedly and continues to get away with it. He and Trump are essentially best friends, often appearing as guests in one another's events. In order to cover up any Trump controversies, Hannity has taken to bringing many far-right conspiracies into the mainstream media, such as the "deep state" conspiracy suggesting that secret government spies are dispersing information to the public that will undermine democracy as we know it. Vox labeled him as the biggest conspiracy theorist in cable news.

4. Fox & Friends

Fox and Friends features 3 main hosts--Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade, and Ainsley Earhardt--that spend 3 hours every morning presenting a myriad of news stories and segments about dumb but entertaining topics/products. Fox and Friends also happens to be the favorite show of a certain former president; Trump went on record multiple times to sing praises about the show while he was in office, often live tweeting what the hosts were talking about and sharing their information as a reputable source. And the hosts and guests that appeared on the early morning show took full advantage of the fact that Trump was watching them religiously, sharing their policy ideas and sometimes talking directly to Trump through the camera. And it worked! The issues the hosts presented as pressing matters suddenly became pressing matters to Trump (and by extension, the country) too.

5. Shepard Smith Reporting

As a calm before the storm that will be number 6, I figured I'd grant some mercy and talk about at least one anchorman that seemed to prize fact over presidential loyalty, and that person is Shepard Smith. Shep Smith was one of the more vocal Fox hosts that actually challenged Trump and worked to debunk lies and misinformation. Without praising him too much, as I haven't personally watched much of his show, there's a general agreement among media outlets that Smith was one of the few hosts--alongside Bret Baier, Neil Cavuto, and Chris Wallace--that valued truth at Fox News. He, for example, repeatedly denied that climate change was a hoax and brought on guests that openly criticized Trump and extreme right-wing policies so he could engage them in conversation instead of fighting them. This made him a target of Trump and fellow Fox News associates, at one point Trump attacked him and others that are known for dishing out criticism at a rally, mocking them for having the "lowest ratings" on Fox. And unfortunately, Trump has a point; opinion pieces are much more popular than sections dedicated to just sharing the news unbiasedly on the network, though this might also have been influenced due to Fox shoving people like Shep Smith into less desirable time slots. Smith left Fox News on his own accord, leaving this as his final message on the channel:

6. Tucker Carlson Tonight

I saved the best for last. Tucker Carlson is my personal favorite from Fox News--by that I mean hearing his voice makes me instinctually put my fists up and go into a fighting stance. Tucker Carlson Tonight is the most watched show in cable news history, bringing in an average of over 3 million views nationwide per show. So, with that large an audience, he's gotta be talking about some pretty important stuff, right? Here's some of the things he's done full-scale segments on:

• Military uniforms that fit pregnant women (and why that's castrating our military)
•  A millennial living in his mother's basement
•  Racist trees (3 day story) 
• A random academic paper that suggested we should start eating bug meat

By now you may be asking yourself, "What the f*** do these stories have to do with anything and why are they so important?" The answer is: they don't hold any significance to what's going on in the world right now and they aren't important, at least not to the overall American public. However, Carlson's show does serve a purpose, and it's not a good one. Every single one of his hour-long episodes can be summed up like this: "they" (i.e. liberals, feminists, vegans, Black people, etc.) are coming for "you" (the average white working class citizen) and are going to strip you of any power you're still clinging to. He makes himself out to be a man of the people that goes after the "elites," a funny goal when considering Tucker McNear Swanson Carlson is the son of a media executive/CEO father and a mother that's the heir to the Swanson frozen dinner company. Why is Carlson, who grew up with a silver spoon in his puckered up mouth, lecturing the American people about the dangers of the elite class? Because in doing so he can lie to them and make them believe in a made-up enemy, all the while stuffing his pockets with millions of dollars.

Tucker Carlson Tonight serves to distract us from issues he (and other rich/powerful people) doesn't want us knowing about; most of the topics I listed in that bullet point section were aired during times that Trump was doing something that would harm the average working citizen, such as giving larger tax breaks to the rich. Aside from this, the actual content on his show is concerning--it's rated highly among white supremacists because they like the stances he takes, which should be a red flag. Here's a web page dedicated to recording every racist thing Tucker Carlson has said/done throughout his time in the public eye, just click and see how long the list is. All of these messages he's putting out there, like the recurring position that diversity actually harms our country, are being directly consumed by millions of Americans that have a fierce loyalty to Fox News.

"But Fox News is a joke," you exclaim behind your screen, "only old people and Satan watch that crap! Surely it doesn't have that much of an effect on our public discourse." Ah, how I wish that was the case. Unfortunately, the toxicity of Fox News reaches far beyond the confines of conservative media--it permeates liberal and moderate media too. Since its goal is to provide a counter to liberal media, Fox News focuses on covering issues deemed important by conservatives, which includes a lot of far-right conspiracy stories and unimportant political gossip targeting a "liberal bias." Liberal channels don't want to appear biased, so they take the bait and go on the defensive, which legitimizes stories that 1. have been spun out of proportion and 2. distract the public from more pressing issues. Essentially, public discourse is a public pool, and Fox News is the little kid that keeps peeing in it. I really recommend watching this video on this topic! 

This has been a somewhat therapeutic journey into the lore of Fox News; at least now I feel validated and know that my concern with the channel is well-warranted. Now that everything's been laid on the table (I know it hasn't been, there's so much more we could talk about but we only have so many hours in a day and who wants to spend them discussing Fox News?), a couple questions remain for me: how would our current public discourse be different if Fox News and any networks like Fox News were never created? If we somehow got rid of Fox News and other media that served to flood our discourse with insignificant fire alarms, would televised news have a chance at being functional and even helpful to the public? How might we go about getting Fox News off the air? 

For that last question, I found this online petition and this one and also this website all calling for advertisers to drop Fox News (or at least the more controversial talking heads) due to its harmful rhetoric. I have little hope that some digital signatures will sway the minds of corporations such as Liberty Mutual, Nestle, Subaru, Toyota, etc., but seeing that there are organizations and people out there calling attention to the network's problems does give me hope that one day the news channel will be hurting financially. 

Everyone outside of the manipulated public sphere that worships Fox News knows that the TV network is garbage; it's not a secret that it has a clear bias and uses harmful rhetoric that often has real-world consequences. But I'm concerned that mainstream media has created a go-to punching bag out of the channel and doesn't want to go beyond simply complaining about whatever controversial BS it's aired that day. It's time to start treating the cancer that is rapidly spreading throughout public discourse, perhaps by dealing with the tumor that is Fox News first.